Here Comes The MCSE-ocracy!

Feature written by Glenn Alexander on Saturday, October 13, 2001

from the another-ocracy-to-worry-about dept.

Forget about the Laywerocracy and the Marketocracy.

Those will happen soon enough, but the immediate threat is now!

I'm talking about the MCSE-ocracy. Imagine an Internet where the people in charge claim as their greatest achievement finishing two solitaire games in a row. Where a security patch is a bandaid with a smily face printed on it. Where 60% uptime is good enough and it's always the fault of the user.

Forget imagine. If you are unlucky enough to be forced to use a mainstream ISP, you are already living it!

Of course it is an unwritten law of business that a manager will inadvertently never hire people more competent than they are. This explains the spread of MCSEs, an effect that has been variously described as Virus-like, Pac-man-like and even an intellect destroyer.

There is a solution to this plague but everyone must do their part. Recent research has shown that MCSEs are extremely adverse to non-Microsoft operating systems. Although more testing is required, this appears to be predominantly for two reasons:

MCSEs don't know how to type. MCSEs are extremely talented at clicking on things (such as the queen of hearts, or especially the reset button) but beyond the ingrained knowledge of the CTRL, ARL, and DEL keys, they are lost in front of a keyboard. Although less effective, a non-MS GUI will also repel them quite well.

When faced with a machine that doesn't crash, MCSEs understandably get a bit worried about job security. And on the rare occasions that there is a crash on non-MS machines, you actually have to know what you are doing to get going again. A MCSE in an non-MS environment finds it pretty unnerving to have to admit that they called in the eleven-year-old kid that lives down the street to get the system up again.

Fight the MCSE-ocracy. If you use dialup, join a small local ISP today. If there isn't one in your area, you've just discovered a businss opportunity.

And remember: hiring a MCSE is a reflection on your own worth as a manager. Nobody ever got fired for using MCSEs -- they just went out of business.